Behind the Scenes of My Cat From Hell: Creating “The Revolving Door” for Olive and Pepper

Last season, I made a guest appearance on Jackson Galaxy’s show My Cat From Hell on Animal Planet (season 3, episode 1, available on iTunes). Here’s a little behind-the-scenes peek at what Jackson and I did to “Catify” Mike and Emilie’s house to help with the issues between their cats, Olive and Pepper. This was a particularly tricky environmental design challenge, since Olive, Pepper, Mike and Emilie all live in a small New York City apartment. The apartment landscape includes a couple of deadly areas where Olive was cornering poor Pepper and viciously attacking her. Pepper had nowhere to go and she had completely lost her self confidence. Jackson brought me in to assess the situation and see what we could do to fix it. Here’s what we came up with.

The Kitchen

First, we tackled the kitchen. As you can see on the show, this is where Olive and Pepper had an ugly standoff in front of the camera. We watched as Olive hunkered down and stalked Pepper, who cowered in the corner of the small kitchen with nowhere to go. Once she wedged herself in behind the rolled up carpet in the corner, she was trapped.

Jackson wanted to create what he calls a “revolving door.” Instead of getting trapped, Pepper needed to be able to move up and out of harm’s way. Mike and Emily had already given up the corner to the carpet, so I asked if we could replace it with something that Pepper could actually climb. They agreed, but since Mike and Emilie rent their apartment, they wanted to avoid drilling into the walls, so wall-mounted shelves were out. I’ve always loved the freestanding pole systems and thought this was the perfect place for one, but all the existing shelf designs were too big for such a tiny space. I contacted the folks at ContempoCat and they made a special set of shelves to fit the space perfectly. There’s even room for the refrigerator door to open!

Now, if Pepper is chased into the kitchen, she has a couple of options. First, she can go up the tree and across the top of a tall, shallow bookshelf we added, then onto the counter and out into the living room. A clean escape! We cleared everything off the counter and added sisal mats with non-slip backing to the top of the bookshelf and the counter, giving Pepper a stable place to land. I like to encourage cat guardians to find existing surfaces that can be designated as “cat only” areas. You don’t always have to add something new, look around at what you already have. And in the photos above, you can see that Pepper is taking advantage of her newly designated areas.

To create an alternate escape route in the kitchen, we added another sisal mat to the top of the refrigerator, which is an easy jump from the upper shelves on the tree. Pepper can now escape to a cozy bed on top of the kitchen cabinets, or she can jump down onto the counter (landing on another sisal mat), and head out the other way.

Emilie and I worked all day assembling and installing the components for the new cat environment, while Olive supervised.

Olive likes to take breaks to play with toys and packing materials!

The Hallway

The second challenge was in the hallway, where there was another dead end. This configuration encouraged Olive to stalk and corner Pepper, so we needed another revolving door here. Ever since they moved in, Mike and Emilie had wanted to do something in this space just for the cats, but again they had the issue of drilling into the walls. We saw the potential here for a wonderful vertical environment where Pepper could climb and hang out. Since Mike and Emily had identified that Pepper is a climber, but Olive is not, this was the perfect way to give Pepper a place of her own, while diffusing a potentially threatening situation.

In came two more cat trees from ContempoCat, this time using their standard step component, paired with two custom cross pieces that allow pepper to traverse the space from one tree to the other.

To complete the revolving door in the hallway, we added a small table across the hall with another sisal mat on top. On the show, there is a great shot of Pepper jumping from the tree to the top of the table, which allows her to head back down the hall, instead of being trapped in the alcove.

As we saw on the show, it seems that our environmental enhancement — along with Jackson’s other behavior suggestions — really made a difference for Mike, Emilie, Olive and Pepper. I’m happy to report that Mike and Emilie were able to go on their honeymoon without worrying about the cats!

Comments

I have left an email message or two on the Whisker Studio site after reading this post last year after the show. I believe I had also read that they would be coming out with the shorter step component options, but I never heard back from them. Do you know where we could purchase smaller options to create our own revolving doors for smaller spaces. I have a similar problem and cannot drill in the walls.

I remember this original program well, Kate, and am so happy you have been able to put your heads together and come up with something that not only looks great and does not compromise the rental agreement, but allows Pepper to escape upward! Cats are creatures of the heights, and I know Pepper has got to love her new environment.

What a huge project! I wish it would have been given more screen time – so many people are interested in providing a set up like this for their pets, but have very little knowledge of how to do it. You did a great job!

Great job – I saw that show here in Australia just recently!
Man I wish we could have access to that stuff here. I am trying hard to find a way to get it here in Australia
This is what I do here – promote environmental enrichmenet for household pets to help prevent behaviour problems
if you think we might be able to work together I would love to hear from you….please check out my website
We need these sorts of things here

i too saw the episode and did ndeed like pepper and olive’s new home arrangement; however, i must comment that while you were catifying their home some “safifying” should have taken place (based on the photographs). “safifying” = removing items that could cause injury or harm to felines. a sharp scissor is pointed at pepper and olive is laying on top of nails surrounded by a drill, screwdriver, open scissors, etc. maybe olive and pepper are careful and know not to play with these items. nonetheless, i’m surprised you humans didn’t see the possible danger literally in front of you. i’m a catsitter and the first thing i do when i go to a new home is “safify.” i know of a few not so happy occurences.

Great ideas and ones I’ve tried to implement in my home where I have a similar problem with my cats. I just wish that these climbing units weren’t so darned EXPENSIVE!!! I’m guessing that you’re able to get these companies to donate their products for the free advertising on the show – buf for those of us on a limited budget, the price of THREE of these free-standing units is pretty overwhelming.

I’m always annoyed to see “cat-specific shelving” that *starts* at $100 PER PIECE – are you KIDDING ME? What exactly about that shelving makes these people think that that’s worth that outrageous price??? I love my girls to death, but DANG! I’ve done what I can using IKEA shelving mounted on my walls (I own my home, so drilling isn’t an issue), topped with indoor/outdoor carpeting. Maybe you could think about doing a feature on some cat habitats that are a little more wallet-friendly in these difficult financial times?

@Cara you make an excellent point, but please know that the two items you noticed (the scissors and the screws) were only out because we were doing the set-up and that the cats were being closely supervised. I would never leave those items out when the cats were not being watched.